of the Canadian constitution depends is an Act of the British Parliament, and cannot be modified by any other authority.  The British Parliament is supreme in Canada as throughout the British dominions; and Canada sends no representatives to the British Parliament.  The provinces, no doubt, which compose the Dominion are under an Act of Parliament a Federation; but the dangers and difficulties of Federalism are to a great extent avoided by the supremacy of the British Crown.  These difficulties, however, do arise.  If any one will study the “Letellier case,” he will soon perceive that Canada has exhibited the germ of the conflict between the central authority of the Dominion and the “State right” of the provinces; he will also perceive that the conflict was determined by a reference to the English Ministry, who in effect gave judgment in favour of the Dominion.  The example of Canada suggests, if anything, that Irish difficulties might be solved by turning Ireland into a colony without representatives in the Imperial Parliament.

We have now the materials for comparing, as regards the interests of England, the effects of Irish independence with the effects of Home Rule as Federalism.  The case as between the two stands thus:—­

The national independence of Ireland entails on England three great evils—­the deliberate surrender of the main object at which English statesmanship has aimed for centuries, together with all the moral loss and disgrace which such surrender entails; the loss of considerable material resources in money, and still more in men; the incalculable evil of the existence in the neighbourhood of Great Britain of a new, a foreign, and, possibly, a hostile State.  For these evils there are, indeed, to be found two real though inadequate compensations—­namely, the probability that loss of territory might restore to England a unity and consistency of action equivalent to an increase of strength, and the possibility that separation might be the first step towards gaining the goodwill, and ultimately the alliance of Ireland.  It is, however, hardly worth while to calculate what might be the extent of the possible deductions from evils which no English statesman would knowingly bring on Great Britain.  By men of all parties and of all views it is practically conceded that England neither will nor can, except under compulsion, assent to Irish independence.

Federalism, on the other hand, has the appearance of a compromise.  It does not avowedly break up the unity of Great Britain and Ireland; it does not wholly deprive England of Irish resources; it does not, directly at least, lay Great Britain open to foreign attack.  Federalism has, however, special evils of its own.  It revolutionizes the whole Constitution of the United Kingdom; by undermining the sovereignty of Parliament, it deprives English institutions of their elasticity, their strength, and their life; it weakens the Executive at home, and lessens the power of the country to resist foreign